L.A. Noire broke my Xbox 360

Hi there, folks! Are you also excited about the new 1940's police investigation simulation / sandbox adventure game L.A. Noire? As you probably know, it's from the studio also responsible for the well recognised Grand Theft Auto games; called Rockstar Games. Which might've lead some to believe they're in for a new GTA installment, which is far from the truth. Well I sure enjoy this title! It's been a while since I've been playing something real interesting on the Xbox 360.

Anyway, only today the ol' 360 is starting to act funny. It started with it freezing, right as I was feasting my eyes on a nice coffee cup instead of trying to find proper clues, valuable to the case at hand. The console just stopped responding just there. So I hit the power button on the X360 and turned it back on. So far so good.

Graphics bugs out (L.A. Noire)

After a while, the main character of the game (LA Noire) - officer Phelps turned into Two Face! No Batman to stop him in this game, however...

L.A. Noire: Police hero turned super-villain? (...in a ladies' hat.)

This odd piece of graphic stayed on the character's face until another cutscene interrupted the gameplay. Then it went back to normal. Everything again worked fine for about an hour, before the console eventually froze yet again.

As a long time Xbox 360 owner [well...somewhat], I know all too well where this is going. The console in question right now is among the latter makes of the original, "fat" Elite models, made before the new slimmed down Kinect 'boxes came out. It has the Jasper motherboard, stated to be safe from overheating, known to eventually cause the infamous "Red Ring of Death" (RROD) failure.

I owned a Falcon version of a 360 before this one, which displayed the same errors of random gameplay freeze. Back then it was the Ghostbusters game that triggered the RROD. The console would freeze occasionally, and then it just went downhill from there. The console was stalling at an increased rate, eventually not starting at all, only to flash three quarters of a circle with a red light (instead of 1-4 green lights, as it normally does to indicate that the system is turned on and functional), around the power button of the console.

The Xbox 360's infamous Red Ring of Death (RROD)

Good thing I decided to get additional warranty for this console! This hopefully means I am soon to have my old school, fat X360 replaced by a lush, quiet and slim, but most of all an out-of-the-box Kinect ready Xbox 360.

Barabing! - Could this becomea nice opportunity for a
(free of charge) upgrade..?